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Early Childhood

For the past two decades, a growing body of research confirms that children’s first years of life are critical to their academic success and overall well-being in later years. Best practice interventions support and strengthen children’s early cognitive, social, and emotional development; providing these opportunities to historically underserved populations can help mitigate early disparities.

Preschool, Head Start, or structured preschool‐like experiences for 3 – 5 years olds

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation

In addition, PCL’s Allocation Committee invested unanticipated additional revenue into re-starting a childcare affordability effort, The Community Childcare Initiative. PCL created and funded the highly successful CCI during 2007 – 2012, but had to cease its funding when the economic recession dramatically reduced Levy revenues. As levy revenues have increased recently, PCL re-invested in the CCI for 2015 – 2019 during the current 5-year levy period.

See a full list of the Levy’s 17 Early Childhood investments for 2017-18..

PCL publishes annual performance reports on early childhood programs for each fiscal year. Performance of early childhood programs during the previous Levy period (2009-2014) is covered in PCL’s 5 year Report.

The need:

As many as 30,000 children birth to 5 years old in Multnomah County could enter school unprepared for kindergarten.Children facing limited opportunities for early learning experiences come from historically underserved populations: children navigating poverty, children of color, children of single parents, and children of mothers with low levels of education.

The Community Childcare Initiative

The CCI was funded in 2007 with a $2.7 million PCL investment over 5 years to strengthen the quality of childcare in childcare centers and the affordability of quality childcare for low-income families. During that time, CCI provided Affordability Services for 392 children at participating childcare providers: 26 family childcare providers and 23 childcare centers. In addition, 28 childcare centers participated in Quality Services. Evaluation results from the Levy's five-year investment can be found here: CCI Outcome Evaluation Report_FINAL.pdf

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